


virago

by Hope



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-28
Updated: 2005-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>virago</b> \vuh-RAH-go; vuh-RAY-go\, <i>noun</i>:</p><p>1. A woman of extraordinary stature, strength, and courage.</p><p>2. A woman regarded as loud, scolding, ill-tempered, quarrelsome, or overbearing.</p><p>Virago comes from Latin <i>virago</i>, “a man-like woman, a female warrior, a heroine” from <i>vir</i>, “a man.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	virago

Things were bad before Ariel, but they get a lot worse after. Part of it’s the fact that the money he’s been dreaming of for weeks now ain’t coming, and he’s been left with a rawer deal than he started off in. Part of it’s the Doc, and his gorram grateful smile and the way he takes to petting River’s hair happily, almost unconsciously, when he’s looking at Jayne. That’s downright creepifying.

But Jayne’d had plans.

Or _a_ plan. One where the fugies got quietly carted out of the hospital like they’d so quietly carted them in, leaving Jayne with a pile of cash he could up and do whatever he wanted with. Leave Serenity. Spend it on whores. Set hisself up. Sometimes he even thought about it long enough to where the rest of the crew were grateful. They wouldn’t know it were him, of course, but they’d be relieved anyhow. Things’d be a lot easier without the Tams aboard. And everything else between the rest would be made easier with the slick of Jayne’s money between them.

He’d got stupid. Things’d gone to hell and it weren’t nothing like he’d thought it would be, with the girl quiet and sad and the Doc so dumb and trusting. Jayne’d almost expected him to fight, with fists and gritted teeth, had thought about how that might go down, had wondered if they’d take him out or if they wanted him undamaged, too. Expected the girl to go crazy, too. It was if the Doc had had some stupid hope all along that Jayne would save them, so there weren’t nothing more he needed to do besides mouth off at the _pigu_ brass that’d gotten Jayne into this mess, and as if the girl knew that, knew everything all along.

Jayne’d had his own plans, didn’t need no one to have plans for him. He ain’t gonna be made out as no hero by no _jingchang mei yong de_ core brat whose ma probably birthed him right out into a big pile of money. It’s not much of a relief when things settle enough that he don’t feel driven out of a room whenever Mal walks into it, and what’s left of his meagre share from the heist he spends on fripperies, fruit and other foodstuffs, fresher than what they got in the mess already, goes into them two fugies.

They don’t know Jayne, none of them do; not any of the crew, and definitely not that trumped-up doctor with his gorram dumbed-down friendly words and gentle hands. Jayne ain’t a gentle man. The Doc sure got mouthy once they got the handcuffs on him. Jayne wonders what it would take to shut him up.

**Author's Note:**

> http://hopeful-fiction.livejournal.com/37790.html


End file.
